Seagate Barracuda Sata Drives: They recently reported a glitch on some of their drives which required me to update the firmware on two 1 Terabyte Drives I have. One houses Windows XP SP3, and the other is an external drive for my DirecTv HR21. Story on glitch here.

I still like Seagate drives, as lately they've been reliable for me, and now come with a 5 year warranty. I just bought a 1.5 Terabyte (1.34 Terabyte formatted) Seagate drive that was on sale at Frys. It's very fast (its 32 Meg Cache helps there), and quiet. It now hosts Macintosh OS X 10.5.6

Happy 25th Birthday Macintosh:

Apple's 1984 Commercial


Especially fun to watch is Steve Jobs introducing Macintosh
to the world. HERE.
.

How Hamas generates civilian casualties They go and build a Headquarters in the middle of a development of Apartment Mid Rises. The IDF manages a pinpoint airstrike to take out that HQ and not scratch a brick on the surrounding buildings.

Prius gas mileage. If one is gassing up at 6 AM on a Sunday morning, and the roads are basically empty, and one can do some driving at under 20 mph to ensure its mostly done only on electric power, gas mileage in a Prius is better than the rated 48 mpg city. I had to take a picture to prove it.

Windows 7 fun: I now have Windows 7 running nicely on a "Virtual Drive" using Parallels Desktop v.4 Microsoft made a major booboo by releasing it when zero antivirus software was available for it. Windows pointed you to a webpage recommending such, and listing available sources for AV software. Monday there were zero listed. By Tuesday beta versions of Norton, AVG or Kaspersky were linked to.

Symantec has Norton 360 v.3 beta, which works with Windows 7. It warned that it was a beta, expiring March 27. Then one installs it and is told the software expires in 15 days. NOT GOOD.

Next I'll try a 64 bit version of Windows 7

Windows 7: I was unable to get Windows 7 beta 1 installed on my MacPro, either as a clean install or an upgrade to Windows Vista. Hopefully Apple will tweak Bootcamp soon to allow such.

Followup: Jan. 12 = Windows 7 now running on my MacPro under Parallels 4.

Easy Update to Open Office 3 on Ubuntu, My Ubuntu 8.1 comes with Open Office 2.4, but it's easy to update it to Open Office 3.0; Just add Open Office to Software Sources, and uBuntu will just about automatically update it to 3.0 using its Update Manager. Instructions here. I'm start to fall in love with Ubuntu again.

Personal Finance under Linux. Next recommended program: GnuCash and GnuCash is a freebie.

Simple Install Instructions here. One simple Command line instruction does it all:

sudo apt-get install gnucash

More to follow

ubuntu :I finally got around to installing ubuntu 8.04 that came free with a copy of "Linux Format" magazine I bought last summer. Couldn't have been easier. Then it allowed me to install 615 updates. This posting is done using Firefox 3.05, on my ubuntu 8.04 Then I found how to upgrade to ubuntu 8.10 here
Ubuntu figured out what monitor I have, which neither Windoze or Mac OS could.

All in all a marvelously easy task, and free. Best of all is how snappy and fast ubuntu seems, much faster than Windows XP or Windows Vista on my MacPro. Not sure if its a better OS and/or better Ethernet Drivers, but I love it. HP even had pointers to Linux drivers for my LJ 3800n. Now if only there's a MS Money type of program for Linux.

FOLLOWUP So a recommnded home finance program is "Moneydance" which comes in trial versions for most platforms including Linux. Problem is:

1. Ubuntu never setup a root password to allow installing of many apps.
2. After Installing Moneydance, it won't run.
3. Need to install Java. Need to mkdir java directory. Tried version 6u11 of Java
4. Need to Install RPM installer to get Java installed
5. Ubuntu wont download rpm installer.
6. rebooted, got RPM installer, failed Java install due to dependencies.
7. Downloaded bin version of Java.
8, Bin download required a chmod A+X
9. Got Java installed.
10. Moneydance runs....but:

I now have Moneydance running, why so many hoops to jump through? Not a Professional Installer! And the trial is too limited to allow a real world test. Only allows 100 transactions. Why not a 30 day trial of a FULL VERSION ??

So I have a lower opinion of Ubuntu now. If apps aren't easily installable, whats the point. Don't think I'll get a copy of Moneydance. I don't feel like an unpaid Alpha tester today. At least with Java installed, Moneydance's Uninstaller worked nicely (i think).

End of Zune time: Microsoft will have a hard time selling Zune MP3 players to compete with iPods, after what happened on December 31, 2008.

All 30 Meg Zunes stopped working! Turns out Zunes didn't "know" that 2008 was a Leap Year.

Fix: After 4 AM PST on Jan. 1, unplug your Zune, let your battery drain to zero. Recharge your Zune, then power on. Microsoft says it will then work.

Story here.

Firefox 3.1 beta 2 available for download. You're not still waiting for a vaporware Internet Explorer 8 are you. Download is here.

Prices for consumables: I've already written that if you need replacement toner cartridges for an HP color LaserJet, its cheaper to buy a new printer; the same situation holds true for Norelco razors, and HP Colorsmart Inkjet printers. Norelco HQ8 replacement blade sets cost over $30 for models of their rotary razors. But razor model 7310 comes with new blades, new charger, new motor, and new internal battery, all for under $30. Similarly a set of HP74 & 75 ink cartridges for an C5280 Photosmart inkjet printer can cost as much as $45 retail, but Office Depot was selling a new HP D5360 Colorsmart printer for $24.99 on Black Friday, which includes a new set of 74/75 ink cartridges.

Buying a Laptop - Thanksgiving 2008.

A friend asked me how much they should pay for a PC laptop if they wanted to buy one on Black Friday. My answer:

I wish it were as simple as naming a price. Prices start at about $400 (maybe less day after Thanksgiving) but the lowest priced ones have cut corners, producing machines one will likely quickly regret buying. At the end of 2008, A laptop you'd be happy with a year from now should optimally contain:

1. 4 Gigs of Ram (Not 1 or 2)

2. An Intel CPU (Not AMD), (Not Intel Celeron)

3. An ATI or Radeon Graphics processor with its own memory.

(Not Intel with shared Ram)

4. A 200 Gig or larger Hard Drive (Not 120)

5. 802.11n Wireless Networking (not just 802.11g)

6. Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium Operating System.

(Must get the "Premium")

Corners are typically cut on one or more of those items.

A larger screen is nice, but adds to the weight and cost of the unit.

Also when one buys a laptop, A spare battery and a heavily padded (no name) case should also be purchased. A case with a Dell or Sony or other logo on it invites theft. If buying at work these items can easily be justified at time of purchase, maybe not later on when they come from a different line in a budget.

Thus $700 or more for a laptop, and $150 for case and extra battery.

Laptops are great if one needs their own computer at different locations on a regular basis. But laptops, because of minituration, tend to be more fragile and about a year behind on technology; so if the machine is just for home use, I DON'T RECOMMEND one buy a laptop

President-Elect Obama is a Macintosh User.

Story here.

The same folks that refuse to believe the SCIENCE of evolution have been refusing to believe the SCIENCE of polling to predict an election, again to their detriment. The same old "Don't like the message, attack the messenger"

Pew and Rasmussen were the most accurate; coming closest to the
52 to 47% Popular vote total. Most pollsters matched that within their
"margin of error", and all had correctly predicted an Obama win.

2010 Prius








More pictures here.
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Toyota Prius: With the Stock Market decline of October 2008, folks worried about their job, other folks in Houston area having to spend because insurance didn't cover as promised after Hurricane Ike, and Gas prices again below $3/gallon; waiting lists for a Toyota Prius have melted away.

The Prius is a GREAT car: compact on the outside, Mid size on the inside, with lots of bells and whistles even without high priced option packages. And getting around 50 miles per gallon in city driving is not too shabby.

A few add-ons one might consider, unavailable from Toyota are:
Vent Visors, available from autoanything.com .
Body side moldings, available from metrotpn.com .
Auto Door locks, available from priuschat.com It locks the car at startup.

Continental Airlines: You'd think with fuel prices down 25% they could rescind some of their extra charges; like $75 to use Frequent flyer miles. Then I discovered they had put me on a Delta Airlines flight, which might not have been a problem, except with a scheduled 40 minute layover in Atlanta, I disliked being placed in row 28. Couldn't change it at continental.com, as their computer doesn't have access to Delta's seating chart, and going to Delta.com; their website didnt recognize my Continental reservation number. A telephone call to Delta, eventually got them to reveal their own reservation number for my itinerary, which then allowed seat changes (now in row 14) at the Delta.com web site. Got a rent-a-car through Continental.com, which I've since cancelled as Hotwire got me a price 40% lower, while still using Hertz; who knew Hertz now has prices through Hotwire that match Alamo pricing?

Hydrox ! : Hydrox cookies are now available again, although maybe only for a short time. Two links tell the whole story: Wikipedia and the manufacturer's own website. My review is as follows:

A local store (Randalls) has them advertised at two for $5, the regular price will be $3.59 per package, and they come in a 14 oz package, smaller than original. My son sight unseen distrusts them as transfats have been removed and believes they can't have the same mouth feel. My taste test is as follows. They taste 100% like I remember Hydrox, although the creme filling is softer and slightly more squishy than the original. This can easily be taken care of by storing one's Hydrox in a refrigerator. I give them an A-, my son may give them a different grade.